De-De-Briefing

"So...how d'you think it went?" Darcie looked questioningly over at Maria Hill, who was standing at a holo-table looking worried. At that, Hill looked up from a holographic readout of Sydney, Australia, the curved, billowing shapes of the Opera House shivering faintly as she shifted her weight. They'd relocated to the nearest available Helicarrier after a nearby spate of earthquakes had led to concerns about their Forward Operating Base's integrity. "Well, it's Carol Danvers we're talking about, here. Under ordinary circumstances I'd say that first incident was just a blip, an isolated bit of embarrassment..."

Darcie raised an eyebrow. "But?"
"...But, I get a bad feeling about all of this. Earth has never seen anything like this before, this kind of large-scale incursion. And this...Thor," she frowned. "His involvement in all of this worries me. Somebody with that kind of strength and no sense of responsibility? No sense of decency? It's a recipe for—" Hill stopped.

"For what?" Darcie prompted. "Hill? A recipe for what?" Hill didn't answer, she'd raised her head and had her gaze fixed on something across the room. Darcie followed her eyeline and, once she saw it, let out an audible gasp. Carol Danvers was at the window. They were several thousand feet in the air and Carol Danvers was at the window, peering in at them with the rest of her body out of sight beyond the window frame; though she couldn't see it, Darcy had a feeling there was nothing but bare skin behind it, though it would be nice to get some...visual confirmation.

SHIELD standard operating procedure was a general physical followed by an official de-brief, but once she'd been allowed in via a disused sally port and given a blanket to cover herself, Carol started raising objections to the physical. As they hashed the issue out, Carol sat on the examination table in the Med Bay and pulling the blanket over her knees. Dr Cho kept badgering her, circling around her and insisting she only needed to take a quick look, and in response Carol kept drawing blanket tighter and tighter around herself and regarding the good Doctor with a look that was reminiscent of the proverbial Deer-In-Headlights. The whole thing culminated in Dr. Cho surreptitiously lifting the back of the blanket with a pen and letting out a shocked gasp upon seeing the redness underneath. After that, she let Carol go with much stuttering and awkward avoidance of eye contact on both their parts. Inevitably, she found herself called up in front of Hill to explain herself, once she'd gotten her hands on a bra, tank top and regulation combat trousers. "What happened?" She said, folding her arms and putting her feet up behind her desk.
Carol pursed her lips and looked down. "There was an...accident. I—I was caught in an explosion, that's how my...my gear got..."
"And what happened after that? You were gone for well over an hour, you're telling me you got into another fight with no clothes on?" Hill looked her up and down, clearly probing her every micro-expression for signs of dishonesty.
"I was held up, the explosion was caused by some kind of extraterrestrial element, it...interfered with my powers, somehow."
Hill raised an eyebrow. "Somehow?"
Carol shrugged, trying not to make eye contact. "I'm not an expert, ma'am. All I know is one minute I was myself and the next I was...not."
"So you ran and hid while your powers, what, recharged?"
She swallowed. "Something like that." She reached up and went to brush a few strands of hair out of her face, careful to keep her hand steady, and dearly hoping she wasn't showing any signs of blushing. Hill regarded her suspiciously for a long moment, then nodded. "Alright, well, glad you made it back. I would give you time to decompress, but I'm sure you're more aware than most of the time-sensitive nature of this operation."
Carol was relieved to have seemingly gotten away with it. "Of course, duty always comes first."
"Good." Hill rose from her desk and beckoned for her to follow, and together they descended down onto Central Command, where the holo-table waited. Darcy was fiddling with it, poking at the fuzzy, ghostly buildings with a wondrous expression.
"Dr. Lewis." Hill greeted her in a clipped tone, and at the sound of her voice Darcy hurriedly retracted her hand out of the hologram field and stood up straight. "Hi! Hey! Hello, I was just.." she waved a hand vaguely at the table. "calibrating...stuff."
"Duly noted," Hill went to stand at the head of the table, Carol went to the side opposite Darcy, where she kept trying to meet Carol's eye. "I"m glad you made it back safe, even if it was a little...underdressed."
Carol gave a curt nod and hugged her chest defensively, then turned to Hill. "So, what's our next big idea?"

In response, Hill made a 'wait' gesture with her finger and spoke into her earpiece. "Can we bring in the suit? It's time for Operation: Goldshadow."
It didn't take long for two bespectacled SHIELD labcoats to come scurrying in with a small garment cover. The one carrying it laid it gently down on the table, then slid the cover off to reveal a little black spandex-looking number, cut-off at the thighs and arms, and accompanied by a pair of long black gloves and matching boots. Carol frowned at it and moved around the table to get a closer look.

"What's this supposed to be?" She asked, running a hand over the material. The shiny black fabric was smooth to the touch, and the glossy gilded lightning bolt adorning the chest was almost waxy in texture. "Did somebody leave their one-piece here by accident?"
"Funny you should ask," Hill moved around the table, mouth twitching ever so slightly, as if she were suppressing the urge to smirk. "This...is your disguise."
"Hill, it's an outfit for a day at the beach."
"Well, not a beach in this case. Plenty of water, though."
Carol backed away. "I'm not wearing that," she said firmly. Hill sighed. "This wouldn't be my first choice either, but since you screwed up both the reconaissance and full-frontal assau—" she stopped herself, and Carol's cheeks took on a familiar tinge of pink. "Anyway, since our previous efforts have gone...less than ideally, we're now trying incognito."
"Incognito?"
"You put this on, go in and blend in with the party guests, play the part of the bubbly blonde, gather as much intel as you can, find an angle we can use to get the drop on Thor." Hill slid the suit closer to Carol. There was a pause, Danvers folded her arms up and started pacing up and down. "Two things; One: what's with the bolt on the front?"
"Thor's an egotist. You show up in that and start purring in his ear about how much you admire the big, strong God of Thunder, he'll swallow it hook, line and sinker. He'll be too blinded by lust to engage the couple braincells he has rattling around in that head of his."
"Alright, well two: This isn't where my strengths lie," she pointed out."I'm not a...a secret agent, I'm a javelin, you point me at things and I punch a hole right through them. What do I know about 'blending in'?"

"He's your match," Hill countered. "You've spent your whole career breaking things, but this guy won't break, not the way you're used to."
Carol spread her arms wide. "Why not a regular Agent, then? Someone trained in espionage! You're a spy organisation, for god's sake, there has to be someone!"
"Conventional operatives are fragile, plus they don't know the first thing about Xeno-linguistics or culture. We bring in a Romanoff or a Barton and they trip up five minutes in when some drunk asks about their opinion on Kree-Skrull Relations. You can fit in with that circus Thor's brought along with him like no other human can." Hill stepped closer, fixing with her sternest look. "You know I'm right, Danvers. You're military, you get it. Duty comes first, right? Before embarrassments or personal discomforts. Duty. Comes. First." Every word was like a punch to Carol's gut. She knew Hill was right and hated her for it, because there was no way she'd ever say no, not really. If it had to be her, her professional instincts would never let her turn around and walk away; but still, it looked like an awfully revealing suit...

Neither of them spoke for a short while as she mulled it over. Eventually, Carol allowed her shoulders to sag, and let her arms fall to her sides. "I'm gonna regret this," she said, before snatching up the suit and storming out of the room. In the nearest set of empty quarters, she stripped and held the suit up in front of herself, sighed, then quickly put it on. In the mirror it was leggier and cheekier than she'd anticipated, leaving the skin up to her upper thighs on show; from behind it was even worse, her red, red cheeks almost fully hanging out, plain as day and there for all to see. They'll know, she worried. The minute I step foot in there they'll know. She cradled them protectively, wincing at the twinge of pain that shot across them at her touch. That experience with Thor and the spanking...it would stay with her for a while. Being Captain Marvel, it had been easy to forget a little thing like fear, when bullets and bombs glanced off of her like so many drops of rain, and whole armies ran at the mention of her name. That was the first time she'd been afraid, properly afraid, in almost as long as she could remember. For her, fear, it turned out, wasn't a Kree armada or a hyper-intelligent supercomputer, it was a hand coming down on her exposed bottom, over and over again, while jeers and laughter went up all around her; it was the knowledge that she couldn't get away, no matter what she did, and that the humiliation was going to be seen and remembered by so, so many. But it won't happen again, she promised herself. This time, it'll be different. This time, the party would come to an end.

She strutted back onto the flight deck with all the confidence she could conjure, clad in the sleek black suit with its high-waist and tight fit, her gloves reaching up to her elbows and her boots reaching up to her knees. When she turned her back to her, Darcy put her hands over her mouth and shameslessly ogled her, unable to even form words. "Hill," Carol said, hands still clasped over her butt. "There's...there's something I need your help with, before I go. Maybe a...a makeup artist?" That time she definitely felt herself blush.
To Maria Hill's credit, she pushed her laughter down so far Carol might almost have believed it wasn't there. They went to a secluded section of corridor and she whispered as much of an explanation to her as she dared, though it only amounted to the suggestion that the state of her rear was down to totally legitimate battle-damage, though the glint in Hill's eye told her she didn't entirely buy it. Regardless, Hill made a few calls and around two hours later, a professional makeup artist who'd worked for the likes of Frankie Valli, Tony Stark, and even Kingo. Though the request was unconventional and involved Carol lying face-down, ass-up on a table in a private room, wincing and sharply sucking air in through her teeth while various brushes of foundation, toner and other assorted items ran over the tender skin. It wasn't perfect, but in the end it passed realistically enough for the butt of a woman who hadn't been savagely spanked by a Norse God.

"Alright," she said when it was finally done. "What now?"

[Author's Note: I always enjoy and appreciate feedback in terms of what's working and what isn't, so please feel free to like and/or leave comments!]